The summons came at dawn.
A page knocked on Yegr's door, breathless from running the length of the dormitory hall. "Master Rolen wants you in the lower training halls. Now."
Yegr frowned. Rolen never held drills in the lower halls — the narrow corridors made them poor for sparring. But he said nothing, only pulled on his boots and followed.
The stairwell down to the lower levels smelled of damp stone and dust. The page darted ahead, his footsteps quick and uneven.
Too quick.
Yegr slowed. "When did Rolen tell you to fetch me?"
The boy didn't answer.
At the bottom of the stairs, the page slipped through an arched doorway. Yegr followed — and the iron gate slammed down behind him.
The clang echoed through the chamber.
The page was gone.
---
The room was small, its walls lined with cracked training dummies and discarded shields. At the far end, a single candle burned on the floor, its flame black at the core.
Yegr exhaled through his nose. "So this is the welcome."
A voice came from the shadows. "You've been asking questions that were never yours to ask."
Figures emerged from the dark — three of them, cloaked and hooded. One held a dagger, another a chain. The third simply stood, hands clasped behind his back.
Yegr recognized him. The same man who had attacked him in the hall two nights ago.
"You should have stayed blind," the man said.
Yegr stepped forward, hands empty but posture loose — ready. "You should have picked a better trap."
The dagger-bearer lunged first. Yegr sidestepped, catching the man's wrist and shoving him into the wall hard enough to rattle the old shields. The chain swung next, a gleaming loop in the dim light. Yegr ducked under it, grabbing the dangling end and yanking its wielder off-balance.
The leader didn't move — not yet. He watched, as if assessing.
"You fight like someone who's killed before," the man said.
Yegr met his gaze. "I've killed you before."
That earned a sharp laugh. "Then you know you failed. I'm still here."
Yegr's grip on the chain tightened. "Not for long."
The leader finally stepped forward, drawing no weapon. Instead, he tossed a small pouch onto the floor between them. Powder spilled from the torn cloth, glowing faintly green.
Yegr's stomach tightened. Dreamroot dust. A mind-weakening agent used in early cult initiations. If inhaled, it didn't kill — it took. Memories, willpower, fragments of the self.
He had seen whole squads lost to it in his other life.
The two lesser attackers circled, trying to force him toward the powder.
Yegr shifted his stance. He couldn't reveal the full extent of his abilities — not yet — but neither could he allow himself to be taken.
"Tell Elen," he said, stepping toward the leader, "that the more they try to corner me, the more I'll make them doubt their own ranks."
The leader tilted his head. "You think she's the one we're testing?"
Before Yegr could answer, the man flicked his fingers. The two cloaked followers rushed him at once.
Yegr dropped low, driving his shoulder into the first attacker's midsection. They went down together, sliding across the floor — and Yegr used the momentum to avoid the dust entirely.
By the time he rose, the iron gate was rattling upward. The attackers had already slipped into the shadows, vanishing without the sound of retreating footsteps.
---
When Yegr finally reached the upper halls again, Darin was waiting just outside the stairwell, looking pale.
"They tried to pull you under, didn't they?" Darin asked.
Yegr nodded once. "Dreamroot dust. They wanted me broken, not dead."
Darin exhaled. "Why not just kill you?"
"Because they think they can still use me," Yegr said. "That's their mistake."
He glanced back down the stairwell, the faint scent of the dust still lingering in his nose.
"They don't realize," he added, "that I've already seen where this game ends — and I'm changing the board."